how you approach and stay in touch with a customer

would like to know of some more mature/experienced techniques on prospecting and follow up.

I sell cctv systems to the SME market.

my process is to
1) import a list of businesses with names and numbers into microsoft excel
2) call each person and ask for the owner name
3) call the owner and make a offer, asking them if its what they genuinely want
4) if they want what I got I make an appointment and add it to my outlook calendar.
5) if they dont want it I put an "n" next to their name in excel for 'not interested'

I do this every day and it's a pretty organized system, because im not using any paper and not losing anything, it's all there in one spreadsheet.

I see about 8 appointments per week, the rest of the time is spent driving and cold calling.

On average i'm selling about 1.5 systems per week. Which is more than acceptable for my company.

Would like to step this up a notch, but feel that I am just im limited by my driving time, and prospecting time.

I'm considering collecting emails from those who say they're not interested and asking them if I can send them an email, and then stay in touch with them that way.

I'm hoping that this will become a good reminder for them, so if they decide to purchase CCTV in the future they will call me, or they will refer me to their friends if they enter a discussion on a topic such as staff or customer theft.

My goal is to double my sales to about 3 systems per week to reach my income goal. With all the time spend on cold calling and driving, it doesn't seem that achieveable.

Any suggestions ?

Do you ever sometime down the road call back the people who are not interested?

It appears you have a good system that is direct and to the point and time saving, luka. Thomas asks a key question. A call every 4 - six weeks is a good idea. Change your offer to include two new features each time. When people say no say "Good bye" and hang up repeating it again in 4 - 6 weeks. Wants change.

The best of success to you.

MitchM

I never call people that I put an 'n' next to. The reason is

1) people tell me they have a family business so a family member is always there - fair enough

2) they already have cctv and "got what i got"

3) they just dont see the value

Wants change but it seems that 1 and 2 are good enough reasons NOT to call them every 4-6-8 weeks. I "feel" that im better off calling people who I have not spoken to before and would actually be quite interested in my idea.

Slowly I go through my whole list, then i find another list and call them.

Luka;

What you describe in #2 is what is called a CONDITION. A reason why they cannot buy. Calling them back with "another feature" in 4 to 6 weeks obviously will not be of interest to them.

A condition may be a problem for 2 years or 4 years. There may be a time in the future where a system comes along that has advantages over a current one, so recorded methods of searching this information is key for then. But for now, no need to call back.

Of course, features don't sell anyway, benefits sell but that is another topic.

So, if you need a way to search by existing system later on, you then would have two types of "n" (or NO). The kind where they perceive they do not need a CCTV system today or ever in the future, which you list as #3, and the kind where they have a system that may need replacing in the future or updating with a better system. In the later case you can find out if it is elased or on payment plan and when that comes up fro renewal or expiry.

You also may not reach someone on that list in excell. Meaning you have to call some of those business owners several times to get through to them and as you work down the list you get further and further away from the portion where the ones not yet contacted are contained.

This is what a contact manager is for. In one you can store a YES/NO field (do they have an existing system that might need replacing 5 years from now?) for long term follow up and you can set those not yet contacted for another try and first contact.
This way, as you work further and further through a list a business owner who is on holidays for a month does not get so far back on that spreadsheet that you waste the name!

I had such a system created. It is superior to Outlook for this reason and Excel does not auto save changes, meaning if you do not keep hitting CONTROL S or the SAVE button, anything that was changed is lost of you accidentally shut your computer or loose power. Our system is called Success on Contact.

Not having to continually look through Excel to find these gems that you never reached will save time. And not having to move them into Outlook will save time too.

But you need to do more than that. Long term saving these old ones for call back will increase your goal dramatically but in the mean time we can do more than just advise you on an increase of say 20 - 20% with a real software system (called a contact manager that manages the whole sellign process, including the prospecting).

One way would be to have a great letter created. In addition top your cold calling, let's get a letter sent out to 50 business owners a week, from another list or the same one. You can use the angle of lower insurance costs and piece of mind, and may get as many as 1 response a week. These are very high quality leads and save time!

Get your teenage son to stuff the letters for you. Or go to a bulk mail house and have three thousand stuffed at once. Then use 50 or 100 a week, just add postage.

As you get going you can buy a mailing machine. It seals and puts postage automatically.

That will likely add a close every two weeks, that and a more efficient software system that allows you to do more, will add another close ever two weeks. That is an average increase of a close every week.

In two years or so, the ones you recorded for long term follow up will start coming up. Businesses where they have had an old system for 5 years will be growing. Thus they need to expand their system and often buy a new one at that point. This will save prospecting time *** you already know them. And you can mail all of them once year or twice, which will get responses too. what da yah know, another sale a week!

If you need to talk software or need a letter written PM me man. Or call 905-518-9864.

Cheers.

Thanks Mitch and Gold Calling, very useful

Luka,

I can sense you're looking to make more money, work less and take your business to the next level. The answer is very simple - by using multiple forms of online marketing!

The internet is the number one place to go to generate more revenue for your business.
Why not leverage the internet to increase your profits? Do you have a website? Are you currently using multiple streams of traffic to drive prospects to your website? Are you using myspace, blogs, pay per click, article marketing, newsletters, search engine submissions, search engine optimization? If not, you are missing out on valuable and highly profitable traffic.